This Is Your Mind on Plants

This is Your Mind on Plants was written by American author Michael Pollan and was published in 2022 by Penguin Books. Pollan, whose previous works include The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Cooked, and How to Change Your Mind, has spent decades writing about food systems, gardening, nature, and human psychology. In his work Pollan shares three separate essays that explore some of the world’s most prominent drugs—opium, caffeine, and mescaline—and the plants that produce them. He also analyzes how modern American society has come to perceive and police these plants and their products in a myriad of ways, examining them through the lens of nature, evolution, horticulture, social practices, and the war on drugs. This guide references the 2022 Kindle Edition.

Summary

Pollan's first essay invites us back to the mid-1990s, when his article “Opium, Made Easy” was first published by Harper’s magazine. In his introduction he reminds the reader of the strictness of anti-drug policing during this decade, as the Clinton administration had introduced further punitive laws against drug possession and consumption in the US. The author explores the millennia-long use of poppies as a source of opium, which was appreciated by myriad world cultures for its pain-killing effects.